Interstate 35 and U.S. Highways 8 and 61 are three of the main routes in the community.

Other main routes include County Road 2–Broadway Avenue. Interstate 35 splits into Interstate Highways 35E and 35W just south of Forest Lake in the nearby city of Columbus. The junction is commonly referred to as the Forest Lake Split.[7] The Forest Lake Split was the scene of the August 11, 2003 death of Herb Brooks, coach of the gold medal-winning 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team (Miracle on Ice).

Forest Lake began as a stop for the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad. The first train reached Forest Lake on December 23, 1868. The lake was so named for the abundant timber that lines its shores. Forest Lake Township was organized on March 11, 1874; The first one-room school was built that same year, which stood at the present day location of city hall. The city of Forest Lake was incorporated on July 11, 1893 with 175 residents. In 2001, the city annexed the surrounding former Forest Lake Township.[8]

Forest Lake was known as one of the major summer resort areas of the upper Midwest in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The village had numerous hotels, including the Marsh Hotel, on North Shore Drive, which was host to U.S. President Grover Cleveland and future U.S. President William McKinley, as well as many world dignitaries. The steamship Germania sailed the Forest Lake chain of lakes in the late 1800s, and was a major tourist draw.

Forest Lake is the birthplace of Log Cabin Syrup. Grocer Patrick J. Towle, who founded the company, lived in Forest Lake at the time.

Minnesota's first Boy Scout troop was formed in Forest Lake in July 1910. This was one of the first officially chartered Boy Scout troops in the United States.

Forest Lake was home to such gangsters as Ma Barker and Bugs Moran in the early 1930s. Barker lived in a cabin behind Lake Street, while Moran lived on North Shore Drive.[9]

Brothers Eddie and Roy Shipstad, founders of the Ice Follies, the first touring ice skating show, were residents of Forest Lake for much of their lives. Many early Ice Follies skaters came from Forest Lake.

The original 1940s manufacturing site for the Toni Home Permanent was a former one-room schoolhouse located at Garen, Minnesota, off Highway 61, just south of Forest Lake. It was destroyed by fire in February 1951.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Forest Lake was known as the turkey capital of the world. The official national Thanksgiving turkey for President Harry S. Truman at the White House came from Forest Lake in 1946 and 1948.

Forest Lake has been known as the 4th of July capital of Minnesota since the mid-1960s.

The Forest Lake Marching Band was rated in the top five high school bands in the United States twice in the 1960s.

Forest Lake was the site of the 1968 World Outboard Power Boat Racing Championship.

Forest Lake was the site of the 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972 U.S. International Snowmobile Championships.

Eighteen world speed records for snowmobiling were set in Forest Lake in 2013.

The Forest Lake City Marching Band, formed in 1981 by Forest Lake High School alumni Steve Hursh and Brian Tolzmann, and directed by long-time Forest Lake High School director Rollin Nelson, was a seven-time state, six time Midwest region and 1985 national champion open class band. Willard Scott, popular NBC television personality, called the band, "The best band he'd ever seen" during a 1985 broadcast.

Forest Lake is squarely bound between the north–south lines formed by Lyons Street NE and Keystone Avenue North, and the east–west lines formed by 240th Street North and 180th Street North. Interstate 35 and U.S. Highways 8 and 61 are three of the main routes in Forest Lake.

Other main routes include County Road 2–Broadway Avenue.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 35.54 square miles (92.05 km2); 30.56 square miles (79.15 km2) is land and 4.98 square miles (12.90 km2) is water.[1]

Forest Lake has a high population of northern pike, largemouth bass, walleye, and many pan fish (blugill, crappie, and perch). It also holds muskie, while the numbers are relatively low, the average size is becoming quite large, making for a trophy fishery. The city hosts an annual ice fishing tournament known as Fishapalooza.[10] Forest Lake was known as the bass capital of Minnesota during the 1960s and 1970s, with the official Minnesota bass opener taking place at Forest Lake several times. The ice fishing contests held on Forest Lake in the mid-1990s were reported to be the largest in the country.

The first newspaper, The Enterprise, was printed in 1903. It was changed in 1907 to The Forest Lake Advertiser and later to The Forest Lake Times, in 1916 as it remains to this day. The Forest Lake Lowdown is another local paper.

One of the nine reported cases of a close encounter of the fourth kind in the U.S. for the year 1995 occurred in Forest Lake on August 19, 1995.

The Hitching Post Motel, one mile (1.6 km) north of downtown Forest Lake, was featured in the 1996 Coen brothers Academy Award-winning film Fargo. It substitutes for a motel set in Bismarck, North Dakota where William H. Macy's character, Jerry Lundegaard, is arrested by the police.

There is a scene in the 1999 motion picture, Drop Dead Gorgeous (film), (which is about a Minnesota beauty pageant), in which one character yells instructions to "Miss Forest Lake".

The Tin Man (the old Forest Lake water tower) was dismantled on November 9, 2006.

Lakeside Park (Located on the northwest side of the lake.)

Just north of the Hitching Post Motel was the site of a Minnesota Highway Department historic marker which had this inscription: "Through this point from southeast to northwest extended the Indian Boundary as defined by the Prairie du Chien Treaty of 1825 as surveyed and marked by the government. To the south was Sioux country, to the north, Chippewa, but neither tribe paid much attention to the line."

Forest Lake is home to Minnesota's biggest black ash tree, which stands near Sunrise Creek, on North Shore Drive. The tree, which has held the title since 1998, stands 65 feet (20 m) tall and has a 47-foot (14 m) crown spread.

Just outside Forest Lake is the Wildlife Science Center, an internationally-known research and education facility that studies numerous wildlife species, specializing in wolves, the Wildlife Science Center has the largest captive population of privately maintained wolves in the United States.

Forest Lake is home to the 23,000 acres (93 km2) Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. At the time of its creation the area was said to have the most diverse wildlife population of any urban area of the United States

Forest Lake is home to St. Croix Forge, the leading horseshoe manufacturer in North America.

Lamprey Pass Wildlife Management Area is located along Interstate 35, two miles (3 km) from downtown Forest Lake. This site is the oldest known Native American settlement in the state of Minnesota, containing Hopewell tradition culture burial grounds that are believed to date back more than 2,000 years.

Acqua Restaurant, on the shores of Forest Lake, was named by users of OpenTable as being one of the top 100 scenic view restaurants in the U.S. between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

Forest Lake is home to Whistler Classic Soda, the only locally-bottled soda pop in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

There were 7,014 households of which 36.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.2% were married couples living together, 10.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 28.1% were non-families. 21.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.04.

The median age in the city was 37.4 years. 26.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.6% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 27.1% were from 25 to 44; 27.7% were from 45 to 64; and 11.3% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49.7% male and 50.3% female.

The Forest Lake Area school system includes 9 elementary sites, 2 junior highs sites, and 1 high school site. In addition, an independent district – North Lakes Academy. There is also an area learning center located at the former Central Junior High School site.